Growing up as the youngest of six children, a girl among five
brothers in Baltimores Little Italy, Nancy DAlesandros mother
encouraged her to pursue a religious vocation. DAlesandro had her doubts.

I didnt think I wanted to be a nun, the new
House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, recalled. But I thought I might want
to be a priest. There seemed to be a little more power there, a little more
discretion over what was going on in the parish.

Pelosi knows power -- how to get it, how to wield it. Marriage
would take her to California, far from the Baltimore where Tommy
DAlesandro, city councilman, congressman and mayor, ran one of the great
political machines of the century. It was there, over dinner or greeting a
favor-seeking neighbor who knocked at the door of the house on Albemarle
Street, that the mayor taught his children American politics.

Today, the eight-term Bay Area Democrat is attacked as a San
Francisco liberal -- a gay-rights-promoting, abortion-embracing,
tax-and-spend left-winger. Republican fundraisers are busily crafting
direct-mail appeals to capitalize on the caricature.

Theyve got ammunition. Pelosi, for example, was one of just
37 House members to receive a 100 percent rating last year from the liberal
Americans for Democratic Action. No doubt about it: Shes a woman of the
left.

But since her House Democratic colleagues chose her as their
leader late last year, Pelosis pragmatism, not her ideology, has shown
through.

Her first move was to name South Carolinas savvy John Spratt
to the newly created position of assistant to the minority leader. Spratt is a
deficit hawk, an armed services committee veteran, and the personification of
the southern white males thought left behind in Pelosis rise to power.

Next, she surprised some insiders by choosing California Democrat
Bob Matsui over Congressional Black Caucus favorite William Jefferson to lead
party fundraising efforts as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee. Pelosi knows the value of money in politics; over the last two
elections her political action committee doled out more than $2 million to
grateful Democratic candidates.

Finally, a day before President Bush announced his $675 billion
economic package, Pelosi unveiled a $136 billion plan that draws clear lines
between the administration and the House Democrats on the economy.

While the Bush plan includes provisions to eliminate the tax on
stock dividends and caps the top tax rate at 35 percent, the Democratic
alternative is bread-and-butter stuff: extended unemployment compensation (a
more modest version of which the president signed Jan. 8), a tax rebate for
working families, funds for states and localities to fight
terrorism, and billions for transportation. The Pelosi package -- a text-book
plan to stimulate the economy during down times -- unites Democrats; it is
short on trendy social engineering and long on the promise of jobs and roads,
themes that have solidified the Democratic constituency for generations.

In fact, its exactly the kind of plan that Tommy
DAlesandro supported when he represented Baltimore in the House his
daughter now tends.

Little Italy

Nancy Pelosi, mother of five, grandmother of five, refers to
herself as a conservative Catholic. Its an intentionally
provocative characterization for someone who is pro-choice on abortion, thinks
women should be admitted to the priesthood (Why not? she asked),
and opposes mandatory celibacy (I know that [the married priesthood] is
in the future, I just dont how long it will take).

So what exactly does she mean? I was raised in a very
strict upbringing in a Catholic home where we respected people, were observant,
[and where] the fundamental belief was that God gave us all a free will and we
were accountable for that, each of us.

Conservative, then, is about roots and values, not a
public figures positions on the issues of the day. In the family I
was raised in, love of country, deep love of the Catholic church and love of
family were the values.

Those beliefs were formed and tested in Baltimores Little
Italy, a 12-block neighborhood just a short walk from the citys harbor.
Italians settled in the small neighborhood in the late 1800s, attracted by jobs
at the growing port. By 1900 every home in the area was owned by an Italian
family. Like the immigrants of Boston, New York and Chicago, as their numbers
grew, so did their political influence.

Tommy DAlesandro saw the opportunities early. Elected to the
state assembly at age 23, DAlesandro would serve eight years there before
moving on to represent his district in Congress. In 1947, his 7-year-old
daughter at his side, DAlesandro was sworn in as Baltimores first
Italian-American mayor -- a cause for celebration in the tight-knit community.

From the age of 7 until she went off to college, Nancy Pelosi was
the mayors daughter.

Marylands Attorney General Joseph Curran -- former city
councilman, state senator and lieutenant governor -- has sought votes in Little
Italy for 45 years. The community Pelosi grew up in, he recalled, had two
components: St. Leos Parish, and the Democratic Party. For Little
Italys residents, the Holy Trinity consisted of Father, Son and Holy
Ghost, but also of faith, family and party, and not always in that order.

It was hard, at times, to distinguish between party and parish,
said Curran. The large events in communities were usually
church-sponsored or Democratic Club-sponsored. If you went to a bull roast or
an oyster roast or a crab feast it had to be at the church or at the Democratic
Club.

The DAlesandros lived right around the corner from St.
Leos, said another longtime Maryland politico, Frank DeFillipo.
Its a tight little community. The festivals were sort of half
political, half religious events, and they were always participating in
those. Even the sacraments carried the whiff of politics. One of
Pelosis brothers, known as Roosie, was christened Franklin Delano
Roosevelt DAlesandro.

The Baltimore of Tommy the Elder (Pelosis
brother Tommy the Younger would go on to serve a term as mayor in
the late 1960s) was a pragmatic operation. Favors could be called in and
patronage flowed. Pelosi brothers Hector and Joey, for example, worked at the
courthouse. Constituents seeking assistance appeared nightly at the
familys home. The children would watch as their father solved problems,
as he used the discretion of his office to help their neighbors, as he lined up
votes -- one person at a time -- that would lead to three terms.

But Baltimore also was a city that worked. Tommy the Elder
engineered a political coalition that included not only Italians, but Poles,
Jews, blacks and the Irish. It was a safe city. People in Little Italy left
their doors unlocked. The garbage got picked up. DAlesandro had the
streets paved, built public housing, redesigned the citys chaotic traffic
patterns and brought baseballs Orioles back to town.

Tommy the Elder was the real thing, with his thin mustache,
pinky ring and silk tie. He was an authentic city ward heeler, said
longtime Maryland political observer Blair Lee.

The old man was a political master, Curran told
NCR. He was old school, grew up in the neighborhoods, was active
in the community and he knew how to get people to like him.

Pelosis mother, Nancy DAlesandro, was no political
slouch; as a faithful member of the Democratic Womens Club, she provided
political intelligence and community insights that served the mayor well.

The 72-year-old Curran is heir to a Baltimore political dynasty of
his own. His father, a city councilman during the DAlesandro mayoralty,
ran the northeast part of town for the party; his daughter Katie is married to
the current mayor, Martin OMalley; and his brother, Robert, currently
sits on the city council. Currans mother and Pelosis mother were in
the same grade school class at St. Leos.

When I ran in 1958, you had to have some support beyond your
immediate family and I had the backing of the DAlesandro
organization, he recalled. It was, Curran recalled, an era of retail
politics. As a newspaper boy, hed stuff the paper with campaign flyers.
Later, as a candidate, you went to Mass with everybody, or you went to
the Holy Name Society with everybody or you went to the bull roast with
everybody. Nobody had money for television [advertising]; you just had money to
buy a $10 ticket to the bull roast so you could see 1,000 people.

In the late 1950s, Pelosi started to put the bull roasts behind
her. Upon graduation from the all-girls Institute of Notre Dame, she enrolled
at Washingtons Trinity College, a womens institution. Upon
graduation in 1962, she married Georgetown University graduate Paul Pelosi. The
couple moved first to New York and then to San Francisco, Paul Pelosis
hometown.

It was a fast-track family: five children in six years. Pelosi was
a full-time mother -- babies and carpools, laundry, homework and getting dinner
on the table took priority. Money was not an issue, as her husbands
career as an investor and businessman provided more than adequately for the
familys needs.

Pelosi, however, never lost her interest in Democratic politics.
Like her mother and father before her, she enlisted the children, putting them
to work stuffing envelopes or leafleting the neighborhood. As the children
grew, Pelosi was increasingly active. She allied herself with another political
legend, San Francisco Rep. Phil Burton, assisting in his campaigns, in party
fundraising and in other partisan activities in the city and state.

In 1976, Pelosis Maryland connections merged with her
California activism. Asked by then-California Gov. Jerry Brown to manage his
Maryland presidential primary effort, she returned home. Brown won the
primary.

Her star was rising in Democratic circles. She was elected chair
of the California Democratic Party, lost a bid to chair the national party, and
upon the death of Sala Burton (who had succeeded her late husband in Congress),
was elected to the House.

Naturally enough, as a San Francisco Democrat of the 1980s,
Pelosis early focus was on funding for AIDS research and treatment. She
used her seat on the Appropriations Committee to support that effort. With less
success, but considerable fanfare, she led the push to sanction China for its
human rights abuses. She is a stalwart environmentalist and, as a member of the
House Intelligence Committee, emphasized the non-proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction long before Sept. 11. She is reelected by overwhelming
margins.

Pelosi understands that politics is about relationships. Despite
her leftward voting record, she has, according to the Almanac of American
Politics, a capacity for keeping all parts of her party happy.

Part of that capacity comes from her prodigious fundraising
efforts. Pelosi, through her political action committee, has contributed more
than $2 million to Democratic candidates over the past four years. Over
the last several election cycles, she has become one of the Democratic
Partys most prolific fundraisers, surpassing [Missouri Congressman
Richard] Gephardt and virtually all House Republicans when it comes to raising
money for and contributing to candidates for Congress, according to the
Center for Responsive Politics.

Like the constituents in Tommy DAlesandros living
room, members of Con-gress are grateful for the help.

Pelosis 2001 election as House Minority Whip demonstrated
her popularity with her colleagues and made her the highest ranking woman in
Congressional history.

Her subsequent elevation to minority leader puts her in line, if
the Democrats do retake control of the closely divided House, for even higher
office.

Nancy Pelosi, it is safe to say, will never be a priest. But she
could be speaker of the House -- and thats where the real power is.